Sean Payton talks about Saints win over Rams

He met with the media Friday night

New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton opening remarks:“It looked like a lot of preseason games, especially at the start of the year. There’s a ton of things for us to coach off of. Number one, I am glad we got a win, but we had far too many penalties. I think we are at 10. Lot of silly mistakes we are going to have to clean up in all areas. We’ll have a chance to get back tonight late, look at the film tomorrow, have the players in and really begin the process of making corrections. And like I said to them in the locker room, look, the positive thing is we’ve got a whole nother month here of training camp. We’ve got a lot of work to do. And we are kind of getting started on that. So if you guys did some things that were encouraging tonight. It’s always hard without looking at the tape to see the specific efforts on special teams. Some of the obvious things stand out. But the penalties were one thing we’ve got to get cleaned up. Any questions?”

On what he saw in QBs Ryan Griffin and Luke McCown:“Overall, I thought they had a pretty good command of what we are doing. I thought they located the ball fairly well. It’s always hard to see until you watch the tape…what kind of duress they are under, what kind of pressure they are under. But, overall, I thought those guys both did good.”

On RBs Mark Ingram and Khiry Robinson:“I was encouraged with our ability to run the ball and their efforts. I thought they played with good pad level. It was good to see through both of them. Again, we will get back and kind of look at some of the run and protection phases of it. Overall, we knew we would be splitting the better part of the half because Pierre (Thomas) was not going to play, and we end up doing it.”

On why didn’t RB Pierre Thomas play: “Same thing we said in training camp. We’ll keep answering we are not going to answer questions about injuries. You can keep asking; we won’t answer.”

On receiver Brandin Cooks: “We’ve been seeing him progress. He’s done some good things. He’s quick with the ball in his hands. We were trying to monitor snaps for all of our guys, for receivers but also trying to give them all a chance for touches. I thought he played hard. He’s smart. Gets lined up very quickly. Well keep bringing him along. There’s a lot of things he needs to work on still.”